This year, for my daughter’s birthday, we decided to lean into the Octoberness, and have a little witch party! The inspiration was two-fold: she was already going to be Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service for Halloween; and I thought the kids would love playing with the kits from The Little Potion Co.
This is the first year I haven’t combined my kids birthday parties (They’re 2 weeks apart. Bad planning. Lack of planning), and I thought this party would be less work, but that didn’t turn out be true. Hosting two all-out kid’s parties 2 weeks apart: ★ star.
However, I had such a strong vision for this party, and was so excited to bring it to life! In the end, it looked fantastic. Witchy, but in a fun-spooky way. The vision was relatively simple—to have the kids occupied making potions, which the adults got to lounge, and eat delicious food.
We brought out our school table for the children, as well as chairs from our now-deceased IKEA kids table, and Todd made a bench for the other side (because those IKEA tables are now *$50*??!?) We put the birthday girl at the head, and denoted her special chair with faux fur. For table decorations, I got inspiration from pinterest, and put 3 mini hanging cauldrons, and battery tea lights, surrounded by greenery and baby’s breath flowers.
I also went ahead and printed out placecards—in a witchy font!—since I knew she wanted to sit by both her besties. Plus, when I was getting potion kits, I hand-selected the theme for each guest, so they would need to sit with their kit.
Let’s talk about these potion kits for a minute! These were, yet another, one of those targeted ads that worked super well for me. Early this year, our son got a water play Kiwi Crate, which he has l o v e d. And so has our daughter. She is also big-time into creative pursuits, so I thought these seemed like something they would both really enjoy!
We’ve had some friends move away, and weren’t planning to invite kids from her classes—since this was, after all, meant to be the more ’chill’ and easy birthday party—we had just 5 kids to buy for. With such small numbers, we decided against doing a party pack, and opted, instead, for individual mini kits. It was fun to find the perfect theme for each child. The birthday girl got “Wild Adventure”, our son got “Dragon Tales”, and the guests got “Rainbow Sparkles”, “Monster Mashup”, and “Enchanted Garden”.
Each potion kit came with a magic-looking liquid ingredient, liquid refills, and a bubbly powder. We also got some halloween biodegradable glitter to add some extra sparkle, and some wooden accessories. We provided each child with a cauldron, with a special one from The Little Potion Co. for our daughter.
The kids loved seeing what ingredients they had, mixing everything up to make their own potions! When guests left, I poured as much potion as would fit back into the liquid vials, and gave them to each kid.
For food, I wanted this party to have kids occupied, and allow the adults to enjoy the party, as well. We opted for
- individual ham pot pie handpies with puff pastry. We just used our usual chicken pot pie recipe, replacing the chicken with ham, and cut out rounds from puff pastry using a cookie cutter, and baked them for about the same amount of time.
- black punch. I never serve special drink at parties, but this one called for it. We used this recipe, but obviously substituted with alcohol for just plain water. The kids all enjoyed it! We also double-bowled it so we could add dry ice for a witchy effect!
- individual charcuterie cups. For my daughter’s 2nd birthday, we did a huge full-table charcuterie spread. And it was so expensive. To avoid feeling like I had to provide as much as anyone could possibly want, I made individual cups—just 1 per guest. We had 2 kinds of crackers (5 total per cup); a purple-rind Merlot Bellavitano, a super-aged gouda, and blueberry-thyme toast cheese; two salami roses per cup, of varying types, with basil leaves and small mozzarella balls; and blackberries, blueberries, and a sprig of fresh rosemary from the farmer’s market.
- southern caramel cake cupcakes. For her birthday last year, my daughter asked for southern caramel cake, which she loved, and so requested it again this year. We went with cupcake form this year, and I added a bunch of gold luster dust to the icing, and painted more on top to give them gold icing a magic look.
Since the activity and food were the main focuses, we stuck with simple decorations: a two-pack of witchy garlands from Meri Meri (“Make Magic”, and the one with potions, stars, beetles, and an owl), potion plates, on-theme napkins; a black tiered cupcake stand; and a little spider to put on our web swing.
From home, we already had a moss table runner from our Fairy Garden Party years ago, and I brought our this wood stamp art I bought from one of my favourite Farmer’s market artists, as well as a new one of an iridescent beetle I’d gotten that morning. Then, we brought our porch pumpkins to the table with round it all out.
– a H U G E thank you goes here to my guests who helped to set up, or make food ♥ –
We also brought out all 3 of our nugget comfort couches—with blankets underneath to protect them—so that all of us adults could sit around comfortably and chat. It was perfect.
And then it started sprinkling. And then it downpoured. We had to grab everything—which was a lot of things—as fast as we could in the deluge.
Luckily, at this point, we’d already eaten, and had cupcakes, but we hadn’t even started the potions. It was crazy, and not expected. We had just been commenting on the perfect weather.
– this is where another H U G E thanks to all our guests, most especially our ‘extended family brothers’, which moved the entire table with everything on it. –
Then the kids did the potions inside in my hall, in my house that was completely neglected, due to me planning this big outdoor party. It was what it was. Memorable. And someday, I’ll probably stop feeling kinda bummed that we couldn’t just have finished the party before the rain.
Overall, though, it was a fun and gorgeous setup that my daughter loved. She’s told me that her birthday was everything she wanted, and that’s what matters above all else.
